Scientific breakthrough might assist pinpoint valuable diamond mines

Scientists have paved the way in which for future discoveries of uncommon diamonds after fixing why they “erupt” within the Earth’s floor.

The prized jewels, that are lots of of hundreds of thousands and even billions of years outdated, have lengthy been recognized to kind below nice strain and are sometimes present in a kind of volcanic rock known as kimberlite.

But their path to the floor was extra of a puzzle – till now.

A staff of researchers from the University of Southampton discovered the driving power is the breakup of tectonic plates.

These large slabs of rock, that are chunks of the Earth’s crust, power the technology and eruption of diamond-rich magmas from deep contained in the planet.

Dr Tom Gernon, affiliate professor of Earth science at Southampton, stated the “cyclical” sample of those diamond eruptions mimicked the rhythm of the supercontinents, which assemble and break up over time.

The most up-to-date supercontinent was Pangaea, which existed about 335 million years in the past and was made up of each continent that at present exists on Earth.

Dr Gernon’s staff, which additionally included researchers from Birmingham and Leeds universities, used statistical evaluation and machine studying – a subject of AI the place computer systems are taught to make predictions based mostly on information – to look at the hyperlink between continental break-up and kimberlite formations.

Birmingham’s Dr Stephen Jones, the examine’s co-author, in contrast it to a “domino effect”.

The scientists discovered most kimberlite volcano eruptions occurred 20 to 30 million years after Pangaea broke up, progressively migrating from the sides of continents in direction of the interiors.

They then discovered the Earth’s mantle – the layer between the crust and the core – was disrupted by “rifting”, when two tectonic plates transfer away from one another.

This sees chunks of continental crust sink into the mantle under, eradicating substantial quantities of rock – tens of kilometres thick – from the bottom of the continental plate.

Dr Gernon stated: “This process brings together the necessary ingredients in the right amounts to trigger just enough melting to generate kimberlites.”

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The scientists say their findings assist them perceive the places and timings of previous volcanic eruptions, and subsequently how you can find potential diamond deposits.

The examine was printed within the journal Nature.